July 2017

It’s not unusual for the 45th President of the United States to go on a Twitter “bender” when he is unsupervised. But this month, one of his benders hit the endocrine community hard, when, on July 26, he tweeted:

“Please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military…Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

The announcement effectively blindsided the military, which did not have plans to re-instate any such ban, and its response was swift: the military challenged the President to an intellectual exercise of drafting coherent policy that would (a) justify the ban; and (b) communicate a process. Until and unless that occurs, the military announced that transgender individuals should not be concerned about being kicked out of the military. According to the New York Times: “In a letter to the military service chiefs, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the policy on who is allowed to serve would not change until the White House sends the Defense Department new rules and the secretary of defense issues new guidelines. His letter stated that: “In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect,” (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/us/politics/transgender-military-trump-ban.html)

Slate Magazine conducted an interview with Jesse Ehrenfeld, M.D., an expert in transgender health care and military service who stated: “There are some poorly done studies involving mental health that have been cited to suggest that trans individuals are at heightened risk of suicide or other mental health challenges solely because they are trans. That’s misinformation. There’s good emerging data demonstrating that when we provide a supportive environment and good high quality care to trans individuals, those issues seem to go away and people do well.” (See: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/07/28/jesse_ehrenfeld_on_trump_s_transgender_troops_ban.html

Clearly, there are a myriad of ethical and constitutional problems with the President’s tweet; it echoed uncomfortable policies such as the ban on African Americans serving in the air force because of the risk of sickle cell (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2197408)